


Shade

by Odamaki



Series: The Sherlexicon [26]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Psychic Sherlock, mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 00:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4725776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odamaki/pseuds/Odamaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Codenamelazarus: “AU where John has long since accepted that everyone thinks he’s crazy because he can see Bill Murray, who won’t seem to leave him alone or shut up. (Odamakilock addition: Sherlock is the medium who confirms that Bill is real and that John isn’t crazy). </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

** 14: Shade **

“He said ‘I come from a land down un-dah!’ Doo doo doo-de-doo-doo! Where beer does flow and men chun-daah! doo-dooo!”

“Stop. That.” John hisses between his teeth as discreetly as he can. The old woman in the bus shelter in next to him glances up anyway and John pretends he’s having trouble with his phone.

“Come on, that’s a great song,” Bill replies. He looks through the plastic of the shelter and sighs. “Don’t be such a miserable old git. Music’s about all I’ve got.” Then he sticks his head through the back of the shelter. “That’s a good pub. Let’s get a drink before we go home.”

John grumbles under his breath and shakes his head.

“Or- how about this?” Bill suggests, “We find a nice bar, lots of girls, and try and  guess what colour knickers they’ve got on. Then I check and then if you’re wrong, you have a shot. Fun all round!”

“No!” John blurts, making the old woman jump and grab her handbag defensively. John, flustered, steps out of the shelter and stomps off down the street. Dragged along, Bill floats with him.

“Bill,” he says bluntly, once they’re out of earshot of anyone. “I’m going home, I’m eating dinner, we can watch some telly and then I’m going to sleep. It’s been a long day and I barely slept last night.”

Bill knows. He’s been dragged with John through every minute of every day since he died. He puts his hands in his pockets, looking repentant but despondent. “I hate it when you sleep,” he says, not for the first time. “It’s like I get locked up in your head and I can’t even do this much.” He brushes a hand through the substance of the brick wall beside them.

John knows. Part of him feels bad for Bill, the rest of him interprets it as a sign that Bill is no ghost at all; just a weird manifestation of his own trauma and the shock of losing his friend.

“I’ll sleep in stints,” he offers, finally. “But I need eight hours. I need a job.” Too loudly, before he can stop himself, he also thinks ‘I need not to be haunted by you.’

“I need to not be dead,” Bill says, softly in reply, and to John’s regret, he goes dim and silent.  He doesn’t disappear; it’s more like Bill can find a curtain to pull down between them, though it doesn’t give them any real privacy from one another. He hangs in the air and lets the unforgiving bond between them drag him along at John’s heels.

As a form of atonement, John walks most of the way home, stopping only to pick up a curry. They’ve found that some strong sensations, like knee pain and garlic, can be shared. Bill comes out of his cloud by the time John’s finished eating and lies on the floor of the living room, flexing his leg and running his tongue over the roof of his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, eventually. “I’m shit. I’m a shit ghost friend.”

John pushes his feet through Bill’s head to let him know that he’s forgiven. Bill groans and rolls out of the way with a chuckle and then they go to bed as normal.

“’Night,” John says, reaching for the lamp. Bill stretches out on top of the duvet beside him, which is weird but normalised for them now and less awkward than him hovering around over the headboard waiting for John to fall asleep.

“John,” Bill says out of the dark. “Maybe we should find a medium.”

John considers it. It’s either that or a shrink.  “Ok,” he says at last, and then Bill flickers out of sight as John drops into a dead sleep.

\---

The first woman claims that Bill is a spirit guide and not only Scottish but probably presenting in a guise from at least the 1600′s. John is hard pressed to keep a straight face and Bill doesn’t even bother to try.

“No,” John says, getting up to leave. “I don’t think so.” Bill capers a highland fling after him and to celebrate the joke John drinks a scotch, which leaves them both buzzing.

The next woman lights candles and offers John a message from a woman, possibly his grandmother. The message is loving and supportive, which is completely at odds with the forthright, openly rather mean-spirited woman John had known as a small boy.

“Oh, Johnnie-poo,” Bill mimics, blowing kisses, “Oh, we are proud of you, poopsie, our ickle doctor.”

“Fuck off,” John says, amused, much to the affront of the medium.

Going out on a bit of a limb, John punts £15 on a ticket for a TV psychic’s live show, but fails to get picked out of the audience. Bill has a running commentary throughout the whole thing, taking himself up onto the stage when the man flounces within Bill’s limits. The man clearly has no sense of him being there.

“They’re all fakes,” John says, as they leave, Bill in high humour.

“Either that or you’re actually bonkers.”

John grimaces. “Let’s hope not.”

“Some people would say you were bonkers. Others would say you were more... free. Well, I just say you’re living your life, there’s nothin’ crazy about-”

“Do not quote Dizzee Rascal at me.”

Bill laughs, long and loud, and no one in the street reacts. “Whoa there, Grandpa. Easy on noticing the pop references- someone might mistake you for cool.”

“Dickhead.”

“I’m the best friend you’ve-” Bill pauses, which in turn makes John hesitate. Bill waves a hand “No-” he says urgently, “Don’t stop walking, we’re being followed.”

John plods on after only the barest stutter, head down. “Ok, see you later- bye,” he says aloud, faking the end of a phone call. “Who's following?” he mutters. He pauses as though to cross the road and takes the opportunity to glance up and down the street.

“Not sure. Tall guy, dark coat. Think he’s ducked into somewhere. Keep going,” Bill replies, hovering higher in the air to see. “Can’t see where he’s gone.”

John tightens his grip on his cane. He’s glad Bill’s there, if he’s honest. His knee is still playing up from Afghanistan and he can fight but he’s not confident about sprinting. At least Bill can give him the advantage of warning and act as a literal pair of eyes in the back of his head.

“Behind the skip- he was at the show,” Bill reports, getting as high in the air as he can go. “I CAN SEE YOU, DICKWAD! No hiding from us!”

Bill suddenly goes quiet, and John feels him stop moving with him and become a weight to pull. He fights the urge to look up. “Bill?”

“He can see me.”

John stops and turns, looking up. The stranger has stepped out from behind the skip and is stood there on the pavement, calmly observing them both, hands in his pockets. John licks at suddenly dry lips. Bill drops through the air to his side, unnerved. “Shit, he can see me.”

“The problem with people today,” the stranger says, just loud enough for them to hear, “Is that they think there are a lot more ghosts than there are, where as really there are just a great many fakes.” He steps closer out of the shadows until they can see his face by the brash light of the street lamps. It is an odd face what regards them with undisguised curiosity.  

“Recent, I’m assuming,” he adds, sauntering closer still. “Afghanistan or Iraq.”

Bill tightens his hands soundlessly on his fatigues. “Afghanistan. I got shot in the head and then right away I was with John.”

“Interesting. And what were you doing at the time?”

John swallows dryly, transfixed by the stranger’s gaze, which feels like it’s pricking at him a bit at a time. “I was in London,” he says, simply, numb. Bill glances at him. They don’t talk about what John was doing. It’s obvious it has something to do with the haunting but John can’t bring himself to say in actual words that he was putting the gun to his temple when Bill appeared.

“Hm. Lying,” the stranger replies, but lets the matter drop. He holds out a hand and automatically, or perhaps influenced to, John takes it. The leather of the glove is cool and firm against his palm.

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. I’m not a fake. Dinner?”

“What?”

“Sherlock Holmes. Actual psychic. Dinner. I don’t think there are smaller words I can use here. This way-”

John watches, speechless as the other man swoops off at an easy pace towards the other side of the road, back towards the run of shops and restaurants.

“What?” John says again, baffled.

Without waiting for John, Bill starts to drift after Holmes, impatiently pulling on John. John takes a faltering few steps after him. “Wait, stop!” John protests, “What just happened? Who the hell is he?”

“He,” Bill says, eyes glittering with sudden life. “Can see me, might be able to help us and fuck everything, look at those curls.” He grins at John. “I’m going to call him ‘Egon’.”


	2. Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John, Sherlock and Bill have dinner and learn a small something about ghosts before Sherlock sticks his foot in his mouth. John and Bill try and figure out what they want to do about the haunting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will probably be another part to this story.

**16: Confusion**

John’s been to a few more awkward dinners than this one but none that he can think of specifically. He leans back in his chair, eyeing the candle with suspicion as the waitress tries to take Bill’s place setting away for the third time. Sherlock, without pausing for breath, plants his hand flat over the chopsticks as she reaches for them and she scuttles away again, perturbed.

“-Clearly the fact that you knew him in life has an influence on the precise nature of the haunting.”

“What?” John says, jerking his gaze up from Sherlock’s hand to his face.

“Keep up, Watson,” Bill says. He’s all but glowing, and more alive than John’s seen him since… well, he died.

“Yeah, sorry if I’m finding this all a bit hard to digest,” John says, uncomfortable. He shifts in his chair, hunching his shoulders automatically as if he can keep the entirety of the world out of the conversation. It’s painfully obvious to John, though evidently not to either of the other members of the dinner party, how _weird_ this must look. John had sat first at the table for four, expecting Sherlock to sit opposite and Bill to hover, except Sherlock had given the opposite chair over to Bill and squashed himself perpendicular to John, apparently so as best to observe them both. To anyone unable to see Bill, it appears that the pair of them have cuddled up on one corner of the big table, with a place left for someone who has stood them up.

“Order the ginseng chicken then,” Sherlock advises and then steeples his hands in front of his mouth.

“What?” John says again.

“It was a joke, because you’re acting like a right old fanny,” Bill says, impatiently. “Pay attention.”

John scowls. “Alright, thank you. You’re dead, you can just stop it with the…” His frown deepens. He’d been about to say ‘sass’, but it felt a bit too… something. Sherlock’s watching him too closely, lips pursed against his fingertips in thought in a way that pings up in John’s brain once-forgotten memories of lip-balm adverts from Harry’s magazines back in the early 90’s. “…back-chat,” John finishes, and then dissembles against his own tension by messing around with his fork. Sherlock silently raises an eyebrow at Bill.

“Right.” John stabs the tines of the fork into the table cloth. “How do you do it then? How come you can see Bill?”

“Because I Look,” Sherlock says, dry as salt. “Most people expect visions or ‘impressions’ or ‘perceptions’ or ‘people coming through’ or whatever other claptrap they invent to make themselves less efficient. I simply see what’s there. You see him, why shouldn’t I?”

‘Because he’s _my_ ghost,’ John thinks, something in his middle feeling like it’s curdling. ‘Who the hell are you with your cheekbones and Egon curls, muscling in?’

“Fine,” he says out loud and looks at the menu. Silently Bill leans out of his chair, tugging on the unseen thing that keeps them tied to one another. John glances at him. Bill glances back. John sucks on his own teeth and then picks up the menu. “Look, let’s order some food and then the waitress can stop nosing around us.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, rather deliberately neutral.

John prods at things on the paper when the waitress is brave enough to approach them again, without really knowing what he’s ordered. Sherlock reels off a handful of additional sides and then asks for a dish of salt. She gives them a puzzled look, tries to take Bill’s glass and then leaves with just the menus in hand.

“What’s the salt for?”

“Well, _we’re_ eating,” Sherlock points out.

It comes out first, with their drinks; a tiny dish of white table salt. “Meagre portion,” Sherlock comments, setting it in front of Bill.

“Yeah, I could do with fattening up a bit. You could practically see right through me these days,” Bill jokes. “What am I meant to do with it? I can’t touch anything.”

“It needs a garnish,” Sherlock replies. He feels in his pocket and pulls out a slim mother-of-pearl handled knife which he unfolds and then, before John can react, jabs into the ball of his own thumb. “Pocket boline,” Sherlock comments, which clarifies nothing to John at all. He sticks his thumb over the dish of salt and dispenses a few bright drops onto it. “Partake,” he intones. Bill freezes.

“What are you doing?” John asks, half rising. “What have you done?”

Bill is looking at the salt, transfixed. His shade seems to sharpen briefly and then from the inside out, he starts to become richer in colour.

“He’s fine, he’s picking up the energy. You haven’t been feeding him other than with your own life force- not a problem incidentally, but it’s a little like living on a diet of boiled rice and optimism. Sufficient but hardly satisfying or, to extend the analogy, nutritious. Now, let’s talk.”

John slowly sits, glancing between Bill, still staring at the salt, and Sherlock. “Bill?”

“He’s busy. Child in a sweetie shop; give it a few minutes. I want to know more.” He turns in his seat to pin John with his scrutiny. John straightens up defensively, the hot creeping fingers of embarrassment sliding up his collar. “He has not been able to manipulate any solid objects- has he touched you?”

“No,” John replies. His mouth feels dry. Trying to appear calm, he drinks from his glass.

“Hm. Odd. Have you tried?”

“No.”

“Any telepathic communication?”

“No.”

“Ectoplasm? Not slimy; forget Hollywood and victorian seance frauds, it’s more like static.”

“No, I don’t think so?”

“Good.” Sherlock leans back as the waitress drops their food on the table. He picks up his chopsticks. “And you haven’t attempted to kill yourself again?”

All the breath leaves John’s body with one systolic thump and a lash of pain down his leg that makes him involuntarily kick the table. It’s sharp enough to drag Bill’s attention back to the conversation. “John?”

“Shut. Up.” John hisses, knuckles white around his fork; something to hang on to, and the closest weapon. Sherlock seems taken aback. “I… apologise,” he says, his words stilted, “I didn’t- um… sensitive topic.”

“You think?!” People’s heads turn to look. John feels cold with shame and humiliation. He bunches up the paper napkin in his lap and fumbles to shove the chair out from under the table. The line between him and Bill tightens unexpectedly, like Bill has tried to grab his arm and he feels a wash of concern that isn’t his own, and feels more alien because it suddenly makes John aware of how little concern he has had for himself lately.

“What did you say to him?” Bill wants to know, frowning and confused.  “Right, I think we’re going to go home.”

John stumbles to his feet.

“I apologise,” Sherlock says again.

Bill stands in the table between them as John struggles into his coat. “Yeah, that’s fine, we heard. But you’ve just given him a fucking shock, and we’re not staying. Money, John.”

Sherlock seems flabbergasted. “I can help you.” He then rises, expression sober and gently puts a hand through Bill’s stomach in order to press John’s hand and wallet back into his pocket.

“It’s on me.”

“I need some air,” John says, his voice a bit distant. “Excuse me.”

Bill lags behind, arms folded, as John moves stiffly towards the exit. He eyes Sherlock a moment, trying to come to a quick decision before the bond drags him away through the restaurant. “Thanks for the blood,” he says. Sherlock inclines his head. “Not sure what happened here, but giving you a warning. Don’t upset John again. I’m not doing anything if that’s how it is.” He feels the pull and starts to slowly move against his will. He hopes John will pause outside the door for him to catch up. Sherlock looks, for the first time, doubtful.

“Again?” he asks, no small amount of mordancy in his tone. He can’t imagine John is keen to cross paths with him again.

“We need a class in the care and feeding of Bills 101,” Bill says, with a shrug. “You’re the only option we’ve got. And I tasted your blood.” He takes a step back, to ease off on the pull. “I know you’re not a shit as you think you are. John’s the same. But John’s more important, you understand that?”

“Agreed,” Sherlock replies, unfazed by the fact that to the other patrons of the restaurant, he is talking to thin air. Bill cocks his head at him, smiling crookedly at Sherlock’s flat admission that despite the first impression, he has no confidence in his own importance.

“I’ll be in touch, Egon.”

“Bill?”

Bill turns back, though he can’t quite stop the slide of his heels across the floor.

“Physical manipulation exercises- try pushing a chopstick.”

Bill grins and departs.

——

At first John says nothing because he’s still reeling, and then he says nothing because he’s angry and stewing on the things he’d wished he’d said and done- not just at dinner but on occasions dating back to his boyhood- and then he says nothing because he’s embarrassed.

John keeps his fists balled in his lap and nobody dares to try  taking the empty seat next to him. Bill takes it instead, swaying in companionable silence the whole way home. He knows John’s moods too well.

Bill climbs the stairs at John’s heels, keeping his peace until they get into the flat. It’s a cold, uninspiring little place, even with the lights lit. John toes off his shoes. Bill passes through the wall off the hall, detours via the neighbour’s flat and reappears a moment later in the living space. “Bloke next door’s out,” he reports. “Put the telly on?”

John does so, turning it down low and leaving Bill to watch it alone for a bit. He scavenges around the kitchen, makes toast and  hesitates before going back into the living space and taking the free end of the sofa. It tastes cardboard-y in his mouth, and too sweet to feel right as an evening meal.

“Order something,” Bill says, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“I’ll get something for breakfast,” John replies. He stretches his leg out. Bill sticks his foot through one of John’s so it looks like he has ten toes on one leg.

“Get Cheerios,” Bill says. John looks at him and shakes his head, knowing exactly what Bill’s about to say. Bill doesn’t disappoint. “Might make you cheer the fuck up.”

“Git.”

Bill hums, good-naturedly. “Bit of a knob, wasn’t he?”

John chews on his toast and then finds himself unable to agree whole-heartedly. “Dickhead,” he mutters. He swallows. The toast sticks. “How the hell did he know?” It’s one of his fears, in a way; more than the nightmares and the living horror of being purposeless in London. More than the fear that his life has had it’s high moment and that here on out will be drudgery, that he will never achieve more and spend the rest of his days on a sharply tilting circle between struggling a little higher than this shit life with his shit flat, and then sliding back down again. More than that he’s scared people can just look at him and know what he tried to do.

“I think he’s just been there,” Bill says, breaking through his thoughts. John’s toast crusts rattle on the plate.

“What?”

“Just something I picked up, from the blood,” Bill says. He frowns. “Shit. I pretty much ate his blood. Does that mean I’m a vampire?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sakes Bill.”

“No, hang on, I’m serious about the other thing. The vampire thought just popped in my head just now, but,”  Bill makes a few gentle popping noises as he thinks. “He seemed to think I should be a lot more powerful than I am. He had ideas about why I’m here…”

John puts his plate on the table with a thud. Part of him wishes he could just walk off and shut the door and have a moment to himself, but there’s no option to do that with Bill, through no fault of his own. He feels a little stab of annoyance which then promptly redirects at himself. He’s being a bloody idiot. The best chance they’ve had to get some information and he’d let one off-hand comment completely throw him and send him running away.

“Do you think he knows about… where I’m meant to be?”

John rubs a hand over his face and sighs. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “How can he, really? I don’t think anyone knows.”

The television burbles on. Bill nods, watching it without seeing it. “I suppose,” he says finally.

——

John cleans his teeth, still troubled over the matter. Bill waits in the bedroom, clouded over, equally thoughtful, though John can hear him humming. It’s something Bill does, not even aware of it, when he’s worked up. The linoleum sticks the the souls of John’s feet, clammy even in the heat of summer. He spits out foam into the sink and runs the tap, making the pipe rattle. Bill stops humming.

He dips his hands into the cold water in silence, and smothering his face with a wet flannel blocks out the sense that there’s even anything more to the flat other than this drab little bathroom. It could be just him; on his own in this flat, one sad near middle-aged man in cheap pyjamas with a limp and a host of minor mental issues stopping him from being much of anything any more. It makes him realise how empty the place would be without Bill, and the thought is something of a double-edged knife.

Realistically, he’s not sure if he could handle having Bill haunt him for the rest of his life; how- assuming he at some point became able to- would he keep on with a job, how would he date with Bill stuck within a thirty metre radius of him at all times. How is Bill going to keep on like this either, without the cruelty of seeing life and never participating in it driving him mad? Or would they both just get used to it?

On the other hand, John’s not sure he wants to try life at present without Bill there endlessly dragging him and pushing him around life. Given the choice, he wouldn’t leave the flat much, but Bill bores of being trapped within four walls and when John stands somewhere the wind is cold, they can both feel it on their faces. John falls into the slow creep of complacency, only for Bill to start amusing himself by reading aloud other people’s text messages over their shoulders or spying on the neighbours and bringing him back a running commentary, and despite his poor mood, John always laughs.

John flushes the toilet and steps out of the bathroom, drying his hands on his t-shirt. his expression at once betrays his thoughts.

“Blimey,” Bill says, “Drop a tough one did you? I know I’ve said I was interested in smells but-“

“Oh shut up and move over,” John says, annoyed but pleased to be annoyed. “That’s my duvet.”

Bill sighs and stretches out on the empty side of the bed, making room for John to slide in between the cold bedclothes without sticking any part of himself through any part of Bill.

“‘Night, darlin’,” Bill says, with a yawn. “Why the fuck am I yawning?”

“How should I know?” John grumbles, picking at the tiny wheels on his alarm clock. He has nothing especially to get up for tomorrow morning, but it’s habit and he goes through the motions for the sake of having some kind of routine to the day. He turns off the light and they lie in the haze of the streetlights outside, listening to the sound of John’s lungs and distant sirens.

“I want to know,” Bill says, just as John starts to drift. “If it’s worth going or not.”

John swallows. He considers all his thoughts from the bathroom and then falls down on the side of the equation he’s always known would be inevitable really.

“You can stay if you want to.”

“I’ll go if you need me to,” Bill replies. He exhales no air. “It’s not much of an existence, this. I just…don’t want to disappear.”

“Stay then,” John says firmly. He blinks firmly, holds onto the duvet firmly and is proud that his voice doesn’t crack. “It’s fine. When I die, maybe then we’d go together.”

“When you’re old,” Bill says with equal firmness. “And are half blind and all wrinkly and elephant-earred. We can spend our days flirting with the old birds in the nursing home and acting like those two old boys in The Muppet Show. I could be like your seeing eye ghost.”

“What were they called?” John asks, for the distraction. Bill leaps on it.

“Who?”

“The old men in The Muppet Show.”

“Dunno. Bill and John.”

“No.”

“Bert and Ernie.”

“That’s Sesame Street.”

“You can be the Bert to my Ernie.”

John blows tension away between his teeth. “Fuck off.”

“Tut, tut, young Watson. This is children’s television. Go and wash your mouth out.”

The tension is encroached on by more familiar exasperation. “Prat.”

“Muppet.”

“You are.”

“I am,” Bill agrees, devilish. “Regularly have had hands up my bottom and everything.”

“Bill!”

Bill laughs. John’s teeth gleam in the light of passing headlamps as he grins. He shifts further down into the bed, kicking the end of the bedclothes loose from their hospital corners. The sheets have started to warm. Bill gives a little grunt.

“Thanks,” he says, more seriously. “For being my mortal anchor while I’m in my confused and wandering soul phase.” He still tries to make it flippant, to keep it all above board and straight-forward, but you don’t spend your whole life carefully narrowing your expressions to miss when someone else is struggling to do so.

’Same,’ John thinks, sincerely. Out loud he says, “Go to sleep and let me rest in peace.” But only to make Bill laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A 'boline' is a (usually) white-handled knife used in magical ritual for cutting stuff.


	3. Phantasmic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill's ghost lessons progress, they explore why he's haunting John in more detail, and Sherlock starts to seem more interesting to everyone.

**21- Phantasmic**

A week passes and they move into a strange new routine. John wakes in the morning, Bill unclouds and they both stretch out of habit. John hies off to the bathroom to be human and at the same time, Bill walks through the wall ahead of him to be supernatural in the kitchen.

The distance they can manage to move apart before the invisible line tugs on them is growing. Bill can walk into the middle of the next door flat before he feels any strain and if John obliges him by standing against the wall, Bill can go so far as to poke his head into next-door-but-one.

John takes this all in his stride with a spirit of rueful acceptance. Bill is unerringly jubilant.

Breakfast is served daily in the form of tea and an apple for John and a dish of blood and salt for Bill, which entrances him for up to five minutes at a time.

“Yours is a lot stronger than his,” Bill comments the first time they try it. “It’s like it has a flavour in my head.”

“Lovely,” John replies, disconcerted. “Thanks. I don’t want to know.”

“I’m just saying. You’re pretty tasty John, and actually, I’m not just saying that.”

“Cut it out.”

“You’re a good man, but you’re hard to please,” Bill sings, drumming on the table. John throws a teaspoon through him. “You’re delicious! A-ha!”

“Enough-“ John pleads, trying not to give Bill any sign of amusement. “What is that?”

“Louise Wener,” Bill sighs, rapturous. “She was lovely and dirty. You’re delicious- a-hah!”

John slaps the disposable chopsticks on the table. “Fine. I’m delicious. Do your ghost pushups; I’m going to shower.”

Bill trains with the chopstick. He has had little joy in moving it; corporality other than not falling through floors seems to elude him. John wonders how it could possibly work- magnetism or electricity or does Bill just somehow draw together molecules from the air and use them somehow to replace the physical cells his mind left behind in Afghanistan.

Bill would rather speculate on the superpowers he might achieve.

“I could fly. I can already do the Kitty Wossname thing, but,” He emits a long sigh of longing. “I wanna be Storm.”

“You’re not getting weather powers.”

“How do you know?” Bill asks. “Also, you’ve never seen my legs in yellow spandex. Hot.”

“You’ll have to ask Sherlock,” John says, giving up. They’ve arranged to see the other man at his flat once a week unless something happens, or Sherlock is too busy. Mostly he seems to have nothing else to do, or, as Bill suspects, he’s cleared his other work to make time for them. Bill enjoys it immensely. John spends his time curious and picking through some of the ominous looking books Sherlock has littering his bookshelves.

Sometimes the training involves stretching at the bond between them and John is obliged to go down the stairs and sit in the kitchen with Sherlock’s landlady. It’s a peculiar experience. He can’t say he ever imagined a time he would routinely have tea with an old woman who claims to be a witch, listening to every thud from the room above and feeling electric shocks down his spine. She can’t be lying though, he has to conclude; she can hear Bill.

The day they first experiment with possession, John goes upstairs to find Sherlock at the table clumsily stacking blocks, Bill stood behind him with his hands thrust into Sherlock’s, tongue stuck out in concentration. “Look, John,” Bill mutters, focussing. “I’ve got… meat gloves.”

He manages to lift Sherlock’s left forearm and flop it back and forth in a limp wave.

Sherlock detaches himself from both Bill and the table. “Good. Feed Bill and I think we could attempt a full body possession.

“I will rock your body right,” Bill quips, all but vibrating with excitement. “Though I can tell you are not a Backstreet man.”

“What? I know the back streets within a ten mile radius of here.”

“Don’t worry,” John says, pouring out a dish of salt. “I’m fairly sure Bill learnt English from watching Saturday morning TV.”

“Rude,” Bill says. “It’s not my fault you lot have such a limited range of fun.”

After he’s soaked up the life from John’s blood, they move to the living room; Bill as bright as John’s ever seen him. Sherlock folds himself carefully into his own armchair, directing John to take the other. Hesitating slightly, Bill tries to figure out the best way to accommodate the same space as Sherlock. The living man is taller, for one thing, and narrower.

“As with the ‘gloves’, try and move my body. It will be more difficult and I doubt we can expect any great result on the first effort but perhaps you can make my finger twitch.”

“Why can’t I possess John?” Bill wants to know. Sherlock raises his eyebrows.

“You’re bound to him. It could upset the link. You should also try with someone who is more resistant to you.”

“Alright,” Bill squats like he’s about to go in for a scrum and then with a skeptical expression, pushes himself forward into Sherlock’s physical space.

John watches as Sherlock sits rigidly still. After a moment, he sees a change creep over the man and then he can see the faintest tremor in Sherlock’s little finger. Yet the muscle refuses to flex. John looks into Sherlock’s face for any sign of Bill but sees only Sherlock. ‘He can’t do it,’ John realises. He can imagine exactly what finger Bill is trying to move- his idea of a joke, but Sherlock’s too naturally possessive of his body and Bill’s too weak to get push past his control even when Sherlock’s trying to co-operate. ‘They’ve gone into a headlock. It’s not going to work.’

“Come… on, move…. one …..muscle,” Sherlock grinds out through a locked jaw, his words slurred, but with all the sarcasm.

‘Oh no,’ John thinks, ‘don’t challenge Bill…’

He’s scarcely finished the thought when a sudden look of surprise crosses Sherlock’s face; all of it Sherlock’s; and then the man erupts into the seat of the chair with an enormous, wet fart.

John’s mouth falls open.

Bill spills from Sherlock’s body in a burst of uncontrollable, boyish laughter. He’s so tickled, he can hardly get himself to his feet without hovering strangely and losing his ankles through the floorboard. Sherlock straightens in his chair, colouring up to the roots of his hair.

“That wasn’t me!”

Bill howls, grabbing his stomach, beside himself. John finds himself grinning. “You were- you were,” Bill pants between gusts of laughter, “fighting so hard- your finger and- you said. You said,”

“I didn’t mean-!”

“You didn’t say which muscle,” John comments. Sherlock looks affronted.

“One muscle! Oneee, and, and, it was the only one you weren’t pppght,” Bill’s caught between a snigger and a choke and then becomes completely incoherent until he manages to wheeze out, “p-ay-ing attention to!” And then he’s gone again.

John flashes Sherlock an apologetic but altogether too amused look. Sherlock sweeps out of the armchair, six foot of wounded vanity.

“Alright Bill, that’s enough.”

Bill giggles to himself from the floor. “That was brilliant,” he sighs. “I’m gonna be such a ghost. Tell me all the people you hate, John. We’ll make a list. I’ll sneak up on them and make them shit their beds. God, this is more power than I ever could have asked for. I’m so happy.”

“Go downstairs, Bill.”

“I’m so happy,” Bill burbles again, cheerfully sinking away through the carpet. “Mrs. Hudson, you won’t guess-” and then he’s gone from view.

John bites his lip to disguise his grin. “So… did that count as a success?”

“He’s creative,” Sherlock sniffs, put out.

John does grin at that. “He got one over you.”

Sherlock looks peevish at that, but doesn’t argue the fact. Instead he changes the subject.

“Any dreams lately?”

John, surprised, considers. “Nothing unusual,” he admits slowly, “Just the er…usual.”

Sherlock regards him with new interest. ‘He seems to fit in here,’ John thinks, ‘with all these weird books and occult stuff.’ Out on the street, in cafes and any other places they’ve crossed paths, Sherlock is reserved. He clouds up as much as Bill does behind the wall of his big ridiculous coat, becomes stoic and apparently unmoved by the world.

In the confines of his own home however, he’s suddenly vivacious. Sleeves rolled up, he regales John, quite earnestly about the manner of psychic connections, using language that flies straight over John’s head.

“What are your dreams?” he asks.

John’s thrown by the bluntness of the question, and hesitates. It’s tempting to be offended but his better nature realises that Sherlock has no idea of his own rudeness.

“They’re more…unpleasant memories,” John admits. He’s not happy to. Sherlock narrows his eyes.

“The war.”

“Yes,” John says, “Sometimes. Afghanistan, though, not ‘the war’. I wasn’t in the bloody Somme.”

“Not always?”

“No…Um,” John holds up a hand to stop Sherlock’s next and obvious question. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead?”

“How do you break the link? I’m not looking to right now, but-“ John hesitates again, “I don’t know. I just don’t really get any of it. Why Bill’s with me. What it’s doing to us. Is it dangerous to break it?”

“It wouldn’t kill you,” Sherlock replies, emphasising the pronoun. “What would happen to Bill if he were moved on before his time is another matter.”

“What would happen?”

“No one knows. They never come back to tell you,” Sherlock says, flatly. “The whole point of an exorcism is that it’s supposed to be one way only.”

“Why do ghosts attach to people in the first place?”

“A connection in life, usually. His cause of death and your…um…” Sherlock waves a hand over John’s shame; he has at least if anything learned not to trample over the subject directly. “-Is possibly enough of an overlap to have prompted it. Emotional connections, certainly. And a need for it.”

“Why does Bill need me?” John asks, knowing that Sherlock can hardly have an answer to the question. “Why doesn’t he just move on?”

“Would you?” Bill asks, from behind him. John starts and turns, guiltily. Bill looks unusually serious.

“I felt you get upset, I came up to check.”

“Bill, I was just-“

“It’s fine,” Bill says, cutting him off. “I know I’m a pain in the arse. And you’re doing better now; you don’t need me dragging on your heels all the time. It’d be easier if we could get further apart at least.”

“Bill…”

“You said,” Bill starts, addressing Sherlock, “Ghosts sometimes get stuck because they’ve got unfinished business.”

“I also said it was a cliche,” Sherlock replies. Bill is thoughtful, looking at his hands, which rest above but not on the table top.

“There’s something I want to do. I don’t know if it’ll make me move on or not, but I can’t- I keep thinking about it. I’ve always been thinking about it since I… came here. I’ve been putting it off because I couldn’t face it but…”

“What is it?” John asks, concerned, at the same time that Sherlock mutters, “Spit it out.”

Bill looks between them both, suddenly woebegone. “Can we go see my mum?”

___  
___

Bill’s mum lives in a nursing home, as she has done for years, a hour or so’s drive out of London. Bill doesn’t say much that’s significant on the drive over; Sherlock eases the rental car off the motorway and watches him flicker between mindless commentary and clouds. John, riding in the passenger seat, worries about him. He knows Bill’s mum had a stroke quite young, which lead into early-onset dementia, but he has no idea what to expect from her. Bill obviously hasn’t seen her in a long time either. Not since before he left on his last tour.

John feels a fraud carrying his captain’s insignia, right up until he shows it to the lady on reception and explains who he is and why he’s there. She eyes them carefully and they consult with the manager, but other than general precautions, they can see no reason why Mrs. Murray shouldn’t have visitors, and agree that they can have a chat and a cup of tea with her in the music room.

They’re introduced, both living men feeling shy and awkward, to a woman who must once have been beautiful, but is now sunken and propped up in a wheelchair.

“Hullo, Mum,” Bill says, thickly. She can’t see him. She looks muzzily between John and Sherlock and struggles through a stroke-induced slur to ask, “Are you from the newspaper?”

“No,” John says, forcing himself to take the initiative. “My name’s John.” He sits on the armchair so that their eyes are on a level, and waits until she can focus on him. “I was friends, good friends with your Bill. Do you remember Bill?”

“William,” Bill says.

“Your William,” John says. She looks puzzled and John thumbs at his phone, pulling up the one picture he has of Bill; in fatigues, grinning.

“Oh!” she coos, delighted at once. She reaches out with one stiff hand and pulls the screen closer to look. “Oh, where’s Henry these days?”

“She mistakes me for Dad.”

“That’s William, do you remember?”

“Of course I remember William. That’s my Bill.”

Bill laughs through a choke. “Every bloody time, Mum.”

“I’m his friend,” John reiterates. “And this is Sherlock. William can’t come talk to you today, so he asked us to come for him and see how you are.”

“Oh, I’m fine. No need to fuss. Are we having tea?”

“Yes, there’s your cup.”

“Is it? It’s not very warm.”

“You’ve um… been drinking it.”

“She can’t hear me,” Bill says, unable to hide his disappointment. “I thought she might, cause… you know, but…” He straightens his back and takes a moment to glance out the window. “Can you tell her I love her?”

“Bill sends his love.”

“Where’s Bill these days?”

“He’s…” John sees Bill shake his head hard out the side of his eye. “He’s around. You know him; always off somewhere.”

“We went to Normandy once,” she tells him. “They had orange lilies all down the streets; it was lovely.”

“It sounds perfect,” John says, his heart breaking.

“That was her honeymoon,” Bill says. He sinks to the carpet by her knees. “Her and Dad went to France; she couldn’t believe it. Yelled at him for spending all that money, and they stayed in a B&B and she called it ‘dead posh’. Tell her you heard Frankie went to Hollywood.”

John does.

“Ooh- that bugger!” she says at once, with a sudden twinkle in her eye. “That’s Bill’s joke, how do you know that?”

“I was in the army with him. Who’s Frankie.”

“Sorry, dear?”

“Frankie was the budgie. He got eaten by a cat when I was a kid and we told her he’d gone to Hollywood, and it took her years to realise the joke.”

John laughs. She smiles, and feels for her teacup, and then looks at Sherlock. “Who’s he?”

“He’s a friend.”

“Oh, is he here for the music? I like the music they do here.”

“I always played her a bit on the piano,” Bill says, looking unhappy again. “She’s got records in her room, but I bet they don’t play them for her much. Will you check it’s all still there before we go?”

John opens his mouth to reply only Sherlock’s moved and has lifted the corner of the cloth covering the old grand piano in the room. It’s not in bad condition, though Sherlock can see signs of age and inexpert care. It has at least been polished correctly. He switches back the cloth more fully and lifts the lid to expose the keys.

“Any requests.”

“One of the old ones. She liked all the war hits- God knows why.”

Sherlock sits, resting his fingers on the keys and playing an experimental scale. Slowly he feels out a beginners classical piece, shaky and slow on the left hand, frowning. “Simpler,” Bill urges. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine-“

Sherlock finds the notes half a bar later. She recognises it at once, breaking into a sloppy grin, whispering the words. Bill flickers, sinks next to John on the sofa and keeps beat with the soundless tap of his hand on his knee. After a moment, she echoes him, one finger twitching up and down on the arm of the wheelchair.

Sherlock comes to a pause at the end of the song and looks up, mute, looking for the next step. Bill breathes airlessly and closes his eyes, half leaning into John. “We’ll meet again,” he begins, voice cracking. “Don’t know where, don’t know when.”

John doesn’t move. He doesn’t know the song too well, he certainly doesn’t know the words. He can feel the goodbye though, and braves a smile as Mrs. Murray catches his eye. He feels the static of Bill swaying at his side. The bond between them feels charged with heavy electricity; John swallows, his skin tingling and hot and then Bill somehow tugs and slips sideways and all at once, John can’t move of his own volition any more.

His voice, slips out though, uncharacteristically confident and in tune. “But I know we’ll meet again-“ the note breaks with Bill’s surprise at finding himself in John’s body. John’s too shocked to fight it; it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. He can feel the deep well of Bill’s emotions and when he blinks, he feels Bill’s tears. “-Some sunny day.”

John watches as Bill reaches his hand forward and slips it into the soft warm hand of the old woman. “Keep smiling through,” he sings, and she looks at him, smile wavering. “Just like you always do, ‘cause I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day. Frankie’s singing that in Hollywood, Mum.”

“Bill?”

And then his control breaks and his hand falls out of John’s through the wheel of the chair and Bill’s slumped out by the sofa, struggling to his feet. Sherlock stands up from the piano, visibly fascinated.

After a moment, Mrs. Murray smiles at them, lost. “That’s lovely…That was marvellous. Are you from the newspaper?”

“Yes,” says John, thickly, “Thanks for your help.”

“They need to sort out those flats,” she agrees, and looks yet again for her teacup.

____  
____

Bill vanishes in a cloud and John excuses himself to the men’s room to lean on the wall and shake until he’s got himself back under control. It’s a small room, allowing him a moment of actual privacy, albeit with both Bill and Sherlock hovering just outside the door.

“John?” Sherlock taps.

John emerges, and is grateful when Sherlock says nothing about the redness around his eyes. Sherlock follows him as a second silent shadow as he speaks with the manager, and is permitted to check on Mrs. Murray’s room. Nothing is in perfect condition, but as he stands, wiping a thin later of dust off of the record player, Sherlock comments, “They look after her,” and he has to agree. It’s clean and tidy and well stocked. She seemed in good health, other than the lack of memory. There are newish clothes in her wardrobe.

“They’re not family, though.”

“No,” Sherlock agrees. Bill remains a cloud, and Sherlock says with his face alone, ‘but there’s nothing to be done about that’.

“That was nice. The piano,” John says, by way of a reply. Sherlock brushes off his thanks and seems a little embarrassed.

“Just curious to see what latent abilities an emotional trigger might invoke.”

John looks at him, not believing it for a moment. “Yeah,” he says, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Sad, though. Her memory loss.”

“I’d rather be dead,” Sherlock comments.

“You wouldn’t,” Bill says, surprising them both. He looks around the room with it’s hospital style bed, and large orange call button. “You wouldn’t know any better.”

“We’ll sort something out,” John insists. “I promise, Bill. She’ll be looked after.”

“She is looked after. She was happy.” Bill sounds sad to admit it. “Trust me. If we went back down there now, she’d have forgotten meeting you and just be asking for another cup of tea. She’s alright.” He straightens up and exhales. “That’s all I needed to know.”

“Alright,” John allows. “But she won’t be forgotten either.” He closes his fist around his captain’s insignia in his pocket and ducks his head. “I’m going to talk to the manager; stay with Sherlock.”

They have to come down to the lobby; Bill has no choice and Sherlock takes the stairs behind John as the bond slowly pulls Bill down through the floors directly. He drops down gently from the ceiling and hangs in the air next to Sherlock. The living man takes a seat in the furthest corner and murmurs under his breath.

“A neat trick; full body possession.”

“It was weird,” Bill says. “Being in John. I appreciate it, but I didn’t like it much. Not sure he was thrilled either.”

“No?”

“I don’t want John’s life, that’s the last thing I want.”

“I don’t blame you,” Sherlock agrees. “The man lives in zone 3.”

This makes Bill chuckle before he sobers again. “He was though,” he says softly. “He was sitting there, on the end of his bed when I was pulled out of Afghanistan back to London; plastic sheets down and everything. And I panicked. And he nearly lost it, then I realised I was dead...”

He looks up at Sherlock. “How can I move on? He’s still not ok. He has nightmares, he limps. He won’t bloody leave the house or eat without nagging, and he won’t get help- he won’t. He’s too bloody proud to. Am I preaching to the fucking choir here?”

Sherlock clears his throat. He’d rather not admit it, but he relates a little too closely to what Bill is saying.

“Thanks for playing the piano,” Bill says. “Means a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” Sherlock murmurs, lost in thought. They sit in silence until John returns, and begin the drive home. Sherlock says nothing for a long while, still thinking. John stares out of the window at the passing traffic; Bill sits behind his cloud, watching the pair of them.

When Sherlock drops them off at the flat, he pauses and leans out of the car window. “I have a proposition,” he says. John turns, keys in hand and looks at him.

“What kind of proposition?” he asks.

“Come around tomorrow morning and find out.”

Before John can ask anything else, Sherlock pulls his head back into the car and drives off, leaving them on the pavement. “Well,” says Bill. “Congratulations on your upcoming-”

“Shut it,” John grouses, opening the door for them. Bill follows him inside and up the stairs, letting John drag him a little and then putting some effort into some minor levitation. John switches the TV on low, just for company.

“I’m going to wait for her…if thats ok,” Bill says quietly, making a pencil wobble across the table top. “She’s ok now, but she hasn’t got anyone else and I don’t want to leave without knowing she’s looked after right to the end.”

John pauses, mouth soft with sympathy. “Of course,” he says. He nods. “Yeah.” It feels like the right thing to do. “Well… I’m not going anywhere.”

“Course not,” Bill replies. “I’d bloody haunt you if you did.”

John laughs.

“What do you think Sherlock wants?” Bill adds, following him through the wall into the kitchen. John lifts the kettle from its stand and ruminates.

“No idea,” he says finally, turning on the tap. “I guess we’ll just have to find out.”


End file.
